A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
IT is, I suppose, inevitable that in the present circumstances the Burnham Committee should have rejected the appeal of the teachers' panel (the committee consists of a teachers' panel and a local authorities' panel) for an all-round increase of £150 a year in teachers' salaries. To have granted it would have run clean counter to the wages- and salary-freezing policy which the Government urges and the country on the whole accepts. But it is difficult to think of a claim better justified in the whole field of employment (apart from the lowest-paid workers). If the Education Bill of 1944 is to bear the fruit expected of it—and it will be a bad outlook for the country if it doesn't—it is imperative that the schools of all grades should be staffed by able and enthusiastic teachers contented with their lot. How can teachers, who have books to buy, some foreign travel to arrange in holidays if possible, some sort of appearance to keep up, on salaries much lower than the earnings of many manual workers, do their work effectively, much less be content with conditions as they are ? University teachers have had their lot improved to some extent, thanks to the enlightenment of the University Grants Com- mittee. School teachers will have to wait, and their increment when it comes will not necessarily be Ds°. Meanwhile their application will, I hope, evoke general sympathy, for what that may be worth.
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